La Foudre
by Kyilliki
Summary: Forced to remain in Volterra and clinging to humanity with shaking fingers, Bella Swan finds herself entrapped in Aro's games. Aro/Bella
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** La Foudre

**Summary:** Forced to remain in Volterra and clinging to humanity with shaking fingers, Bella Swan finds herself entrapped in Aro's games. [Aro/Bella]

**Author's Note:** Bella/The Volturi fics have become something of a trend recently, and I have apparently climbed onto the bandwagon. This fic, however, might be unique in the fact that it _will not _have a happy ending for Bella.

The title translates to 'The Lightning' and is the French name of the Tarot card 'The Tower', which has all sorts of symbolism that meshes with this story.

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**I.**

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"You have forgotten that actions have consequences, my young friend." The air stilled and thickened as Aro's pronouncement shredded the tautened stillness.

"What do you mean?" Her lover snarled his defiance, but the earth-haired girl in his arms could scarcely chew back her whimpers. There was no need for gifts to see how this would end; her blood would run in pretty rivulets through cleverly concealed culverts. In this moment, it was not death that quickened her pulse, but the certain separation from the bronze boy who clung to her with savage tenacity.

"We cannot simply allow you to depart with Miss Swan. You have shown no intention to change her, and I doubt that this little one—" Aro spared a gesture and a glance at towards Alice, "—will defy your wishes."

"You have my word that I—"

"Edward, Edward, you have never been a liar. Do not allow love to change that charming quirk." The immortal who fancied himself a god glanced around the mausoleum of his throne room, pantomiming a search for alternatives.

"Because you are the son of a very old and very dear friend, I will offer you a unique opportunity. My dear Bella will remain here, with us. We will turn her and train her into the peerless creature I am certain she can become with our tutelage. Perhaps, when she is old enough, she can make the choice to return to you." The ancient's feathery words were serene, the rounded consonants masking barbs that tore the chambers of Bella's heart asunder. Already, a muffled growl was threatening to claw its way from Edward's throat as he foresaw the ultimatum to follow.

"If, indeed, you choose to make a fuss, as I see you long to, I will be forced to let you bear the full brunt of our justice. Your family was complicit in informing this mortal about our world, and they will, of course, suffer the consequences. Would you prefer this outcome?"

Caius' smile was hideously eager, a rictus of obscene satisfaction that belonged on the visage of a gargoyle, perched high on the parapets of a gothic cathedral. The threat would readily be turned into ash-streaked reality, Bella realized, turning pleading eyes to Edward.

He hesitated for a heartbeat, and she found her voice, tremulous and tumbling but sufficient for the situation at hand.

"I'll stay. I'll stay with you, as long as you want. Just—don't. Don't hurt any of the Cullens."

"Ah, how remiss of me to address you, Edward. It seems that the lady has a far clearer head," Aro crooned. "Bella, my sweet, I am more than delighted to accept your conditions. Your aberrant friends will remain unharmed."

"And Edward and Alice—they can leave safely?" A flush of crimson across her cheekbones accompanied this tide of courage, and Bella could see the hunger rising in tendrils behind Aro's eyes.

"If they wish it, I will purchase their return tickets to Washington myself."

Once more, Bella's lips rounded to voice another request, threadbare with desperation but the ebony-haired ancient before her raised a twig-thin finger to his lips. "You have many requests for one whose fate lies at my mercy," he remarked gracefully. "Will you allow my requirements to be heard?"

A mute nod spurred his speech.

"The Cullens will remain in America and concoct an explanation for this young lady's family. Adolescent runaways are so common nowadays, it really is a pity." Aro's glance fell sharply upon his captive audience, before he continued. "If you choose to make the mistake of returning to Italy under any pretense, the retribution will be harsh. Miss Swan will rejoin you if and when the Volturi allow it."

A pause, a heartbeat where Bella expected some act of madness from Edward, or perhaps divine intervention, but nothing came of it but the falling chill of brittle acceptance. Disappointment ghosted elegant fingers down her spine; she did not know who it was that had provoked that sentiment.

"Lovely," Aro announced, a cat's grin gleaming above clasped hands. "Demetri, if you would take our newest guest to her room."

"I can't—I can't say goodbye?" Gnawing at her lip, Bella turned in a whirl of dark hair and metal-scented fear to face the honey-eyed immortal who held her heart between his palms.

"Miss Swan, your capacity for the dramatic is irking Caius and upsetting Marcus. I would advise decorum in your comportment before those who have significantly less patience than Carlisle and his ilk."

Demetri was at her side now, flinty hands resting upon her shoulders, and she could not run.

Her vision blurred and bled, a watercolour tossed into the rain, as she was led away. The sounds behind her, the crunch of flesh and granite, heralded a vampires' fight, and Bella idly wondered whether the red eyed reflection of little Jane was employing his own hellish gift.

[-]

The next few hours were sodden, peppered with sobs and salt-stained fingers rubbing red eyes as Bella's heart was peeled, layer by layer. Though her weeping turned woeful and wild in the end, nobody came to comfort or soothe, and the walls of her unexplored room trapped her grief, an echo-chamber of roughened stone.

When the night insinuated itself through leaded windows and lapped away the light, the girl knotted herself on the bed and waited for sleep.

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**Author's Note:** Your feedback is always appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** I'm very much overwhelmed by the positive comments, alerts and favourites I've recieved. Thank you so much, each and every one of you. The encouragement is invaluable, and apparently, it makes me update faster.

This chapter has quite a bit of character introduction, but the next one will begin living up to the fic's M rating. I hope you enjoy.

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**II.**

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"Wake up, please."

Chilly hands cupped Bella's features, and a sweetly, musically insistent voice repeated, "Stop sleeping and wake up now, please."

Cocoa-coloured eyes flickered wearily and the girl recoiled with a poorly suppressed yelp. Her companion was a tiny, china-featured immortal with docile, crimson-rimed eyes. Ebony hair fell about her shoulders and a snowy sundress clung to willowy limbs.

"Why are you making that sound?" she inquired.

"I'm—I'm so sorry. Nobody's woken me up like that…well, ever, actually," Bella murmured, stretching in clothes that carried an acidic note of sweat amidst the salt stains.

The little vampire wrinkled her nose, perplexed.

"Next time, just tap me on the shoulder or something." The calm stitched with gentleness came readily, masking a night of agony scraped raw. "What's your name?"

"I am Renata. Master Aro says that I must take your measurements. For clothes." A tape measure appeared from a concealed pocket and the girl brandished it with something approaching competence. "After that, I am encouraged to feed you. Because humans get hungry quickly." It seemed that the speech had been memorized by rote.

She ushered Bella out of bed and neatly began looping and examining numbers. For a moment, Renata resembled Alice and Bella almost laughed.

"You remind me of a friend."

Renata glanced up, uncomprehending, as though every word was clear, but strung together, the meaning faded.

Loneliness fell upon Bella's chest, ribs snapping eagerly beneath the granite of loss until the shards of bone tore through the webbed sinew of her lungs, stealing breath and leaving copper on the tongue.

[-]

Bella began to wonder whether, despite Aro's claims, the Volturi did indeed favour the theatrical, spawning legends of vampires who flitted in candlelight, a night-time aristocracy that exchanged wine for blood. It would certainly seem so, she concluded, led through breathless corridors where torches stole the air, melding it into flame that danced over blemished stone.

Even as she kept pace with her companion, she could not help fidgeting with the collars and hems of her new clothes, opulent and odd. Fashion, she decided, could be added to the list of things that Renata didn't understand, along with sarcasm, metaphor and the need for personal space.

As her guide paused before a door that looked no different from any other, the brown-eyed girl asked, "I will be speaking to Aro?" The question was merely a breath and a tremor.

"No. You will be speaking to everyone," Renata said, serenely unaware of the discomfort her words welcomed.

The door opened, seemingly of its own accord, and then Bella was certain—it was not blood that fed the Volturi, but roiling, rising fear.

[-]

"My dear ones, it is my pleasure to introduce Isabella Swan," Aro said, the fire's light catching his irises and teeth, his smile turning masklike. "Sulpicia and Athenodora have so looked forward to meeting you," he added, steering the frail-boned girl into the chamber's center with webbing fingers on her shoulder.

Bella let herself glance at the two unfamiliar women. The one curled at Caius' side waved a hand in mock-salute, her bruised-plum lips upturned in a Cheshire cat's grin, while the glorious, leonine creature whose gaze never left Aro merely curved a brow. It was perhaps the least enthusiastic welcome she could remember receiving.

"I…um, it's nice to meet you as well," she mumbled, carefully examining her distorted reflection caught in glossy shoes.

The silence crept in on dainty paws, punctuated only by the susurrus of fabric-bound pages, carelessly flipped by Marcus.

"This has been fascinating. Is there anything more you wish to say?" Frost-haired Caius tapped on the table's ancient oak, an irritated rhythm of nails and alabaster.

"I was, of course, hoping to bring this up less abruptly but we are here to discuss Bella's transformation."

"This situation does not necessitate discussion."

"Caius, Caius, I think it is prudent to allow Miss Swan to choose when she wishes to be changed into one of us." A casual, parchment-skinned hand brushed Bella's cheek, perhaps in reassurance, but the stony caress elicited liquid lightening across her skin. A moment of indecision tugged at her; she did not know whether to lean into Aro's flinty palms or to flinch away, a fawn startled by a wolf in winter.

Her heart hammered its treacherous rhythm against her ribs as pink petaled her cheekbones. _This_, this misplaced magnetism was unbearable, and Bella knew that there was no hiding it from her immortal audience.

Sulpicia was smiling now, a fresco of assured death rendered in scarlet and gold.

"If you could change me later…a few weeks, maybe, I'd really—it'd be great." Bella's voice shivered, stumbling upon familiar words and innocent, feathery lies. The notion of surrendering warmth and gurgling, spilling blood seemed unbearable to contemplate in a room where five beautiful corpses, seductive in their madness, watched her with filmed eyes.

"A month is certainly acceptable. Meanwhile, I will advise you to be cautious, Miss Swan. Your blood, as young Edward may have told you, is delicious. In your position, I would not stray to the younger guards."

Aro edged pale fingertips over the flesh of his companions, searching for omitted possibilities, before interlacing his hand with that of his mate. "I believe that we are finished here," he dismissed, his tone careless and light. "If any of us wish to speak with you, my dear, we will let you know."

He did not face her as he spoke his farewell. Sulpicia's throat was against his lips, while something between desire and intoxication drew a veil over his features, shrouding and strange.

[-]

It was only when she returned to her room that Bella realized where her hand had strayed during the ambling trek through sandstone and firelight. Splayed against her cheek, her fingertips mapped Aro's touch, an invisible constellation of desire too raw and new to be believed.

She was mad, from grief or exhaustion, she knew. How else, _why else_ did the thought of lucent skin and wide, fascinated eyes draw heat, ephemeral as a mirage in high summer, through netted veins and knotted capillaries until her heart quickened to an impossible pace?

_Whore_, her mind whispered, because she had known love, sincere and shimmering at the edges, and because she was willing to exchange it for this soft, rising lunacy.

_Liar,_ her thoughts added, when she tried to convince herself that this sentiment, difficult and blackened, was mere illusion.

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**Author's Note: **Feedback is greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **Thank you very much to everyone who favourited and reviewed the previous chapter. The feedback is always very encouraging, and I welcome any and all opinions.

This chapter contains some sexuality, fairly tame by my standards, but present nonetheless. If some readers are offended by this, I would advise skipping over the first part of this chapter.

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**III.**

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Night encroached upon the stone of the palazzo in waves of star-silvered blackness, leaving only skittering scraps of uncertain light and shadows the colour of bone, so unlike the nuzzling, misty twilight that Bella had loved in Forks that a fresh tide of homesickness rose in her stomach, twining her insides into knots and nausea.

Unwilling to let herself shatter into sharpened, shimmering shards, she searched the room for some diversion, but the Volturi had not deemed to provide her with books, much less a computer. Finding no alternative, she shrugged off her flower-spattered sundress and began searching for something that could double as pajamas.

A too-large t-shirt caught her eye, and she pulled it on, collapsing onto silken sheets.

Though her breathing and pulse hissed and throbbed too loudly to her own ears, Bella could detect the steady shift in the fabric of sound between day and darkness. When the sun stained stone, the palazzo hummed with footfalls and voices, the soothing ambiance of a bustling office. As shadows lengthened, facades fell away.

The screams began first, hollow and rattling, making Bella wonder who amongst the Volturi enjoyed playing with their food. Soon after, hisses and moans tore the silence asunder, suggesting that her captors indulged in passion of a different sort once their eyes became rubies. It was not difficult to envision the lingering, curling sensuality between the Volturi leaders igniting an inferno.

Perhaps someone amongst the guard had a gift like Jasper's, Bella decided as imaginary heat lapped at her toes and sparkling frissons of lust danced unbearably where the cotton of her shirt brushed her skin. These could _not_ be her own emotions—hadn't she, just months ago, decided that she'd cheerfully wait years for Edward? His tenderness had moulded itself around her, filling the hollows and fissures, remaking her into someone whole.

Suddenly, that love was insufficient, trickling through the sieve of her lashes and muddying the ground.

Seemingly of its own volition, a blue-veined hand crept beneath her shirt, snaking past the ribboned waistband of flimsy panties. Fumbling fingers searched the slickness between her hips, until a fleeting touch brushed the sensitive knot of flesh that forced her spine off the sheets, coaxing starved mewls from her throat.

Falling back onto the pillows, Bella brought a copper-headed boy, beautiful and righteous, to her mind's eye, envisioning lovemaking marked by feathery caresses and whispered promises of an elegant eternity. Desperation marred her features as impatient nails dug in too deeply, seeking to elicit a response, breathy whispers of Edward's name. A few moments proved the effort useless.

Unbidden images of dark hair tumbling in streamers over her shoulder filled her head and her own hands elicited flame once more…

…powdery palms cupped her breasts, the dusk-stained buds of nipples eagerly teased by teeth that trespassed too close to the violet-bordered rivers of veins. Words were mouthed in songlike Italian against her ribs, the vibrations finding their note and thrumming between her thighs, until she thrashed and whimpered, yearning for release that did not come…

The pads of her fingers set a rhythm, smooth and swift, as her mind substituted Aro's lips for her hands, the devastation of death and pleasure entwined, inflicted upon a girl who drowned in futile desire. As the pressure inside her blossomed into a gasping, tearing iris, her thoughts granted her an image of the ebony-haired ancient tangled between her legs, his greedy mouth ripping through the silky underbelly of her throat.

Bella arched, her vision running scarlet and sticky, as the Aro of her creation tore apart her head in screaming pain and shivering pleasure.

The leaden tide of exhaustion claimed her as soon as paroxysms relinquished their hold, but not soon enough to banish the furious, smarting crimson that stained her cheeks in blade-sharp shame. In ten minutes, she had peeled away everything that made her a Cullen by nature; she understood this. There was nothing of virtue left, and she could not help but wonder whether only an ashen cloak could veil this sort of transgression.

[-]

"Good morning, brothers!" Aro chanted, merrily gliding into the mahogany-carved study shared amongst the ruling triumvirate.

"It is noon," Caius remarked, his gaze not leaving the neatly stacked papers before him.

"Please forgive me. I was otherwise occupied." He swiped at the film of dust motes glazing the elaborately wrought teak of his desk.

"As you tend to be when I wish to speak with you." His pale-haired brother was scowling, deep lines shadowing his features.

"What is it?" Aro murmured, leaning back, his fingers patiently steepled.

"Why, in the name of all the gods, did you allow the Cullen boy's pet to remain human? You have just brought four weeks of worry upon me. Jane is likely plotting her death as we speak."

"Caius, dear one—" Aro could not help grinning when the younger man bristled at the affection, "—if we turn Miss Swan against her will, she will be an impossible newborn. With that gift of hers, the twins will not serve their purpose and perhaps even Demetri will prove useless, should she flee."

"How do you intend to buy her loyalty within such a short time? She fears us, perhaps hates us. Can you not tell that from her heartbeat, her smell?"

A chuckle interrupted Caius' tirade. "Ah, little brother, this is why we do not leave you responsible for public relations. You see, I believe that everyone has a price. If they are promised the correct incentive—wealth, power, an ideal perhaps, they will remain loyal though hell itself dogs their steps."

"What do you intend to offer the human?"

"Our sweet Bella needs to be _loved_. If she believes that someone cares for her beyond reason, she will do anything for him. Her fool's flight to Italy is certainly proof of that," Aro said, delighted, though Caius wore a mask of disgust.

"And who do you propose will feign the sentiment?"

"You needn't make that face, Cai. You deserve better than being eviscerated by Athenodora." Ember eyes glowed hungrily as Aro turned to Marcus. "Would you care to tell me about our lovely guest's feelings toward me?"

Bruise-eyed and silent, Marcus extended a gaunt hand with purpled nails, filling his brother's head with glimmering traces of an uncertain bond, sticky fingers and fiery cheeks buried in silk.

"Wonderful."

[-]

A staccato of sound at Bella's door interrupted boredom side-stitched with panic.

"Come in," she said, immediately wondering whether she had any authority to make such a statement.

"Bella, my dear, I am afraid that I have not been a satisfactory host," Aro sang, entering the room in a swirl of inky fabric and manic cheer.

"I…um, what do you mean?" The petaled pink on her features only brightened as she realized how revealing the nervous thrum in her voice was, even to one who was unfamiliar with mortal tics.

"You must be dreadfully bored here, with only Renata for company."

"Oh no, she's very sweet and I like—"

"Of course, I was not impugning little Renata's abilities. I merely meant that you must have some interests to occupy your time. Tell me, what is it that you like?"

Bella picked at raw nails, uncomfortably reminded of first days of school, where teachers asked nosy questions while twitching, reluctant students listed their hobbies to be judged by all.

"Do you like music? Books? Fashion?" Aro's voice was infinitely gentle with genuine curiosity, the sort of sweetness that she had come to expect only from Carlisle. It could not be sincere, Bella's mind insisted, but logic would not overrule the fragment of her that wished.

"I love to read," she whispered. "Do you have a library here, or another place where I could get some books?"

"Indeed. I apologize for not thinking of it earlier. If you'll come with me, I can show you to the library." A pale hand was extended, and she took it, unsure whether that was the intent of the gesture.

"Please forgive me," he murmured, perhaps noting the persistent patter of her pulse. "I generally take people by the hand as a means of communication. You will forgive me my old habits, I hope."

Once again, Bella breathed something unintelligible, trying to cast aside the sensation of belonging that edged through her when her palm was curved against his.

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**Author's Note:** As always, your reviews are appreciated. I have a formspring account (link on profile), so if you feel like leaving me anonymous reviews and receiving a reply, you can always use that.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

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"Oh wow, this is beautiful," Bella breathed, glancing at stacks of books, stale and faded with time, bearing the smell of centuries-old inked leather mingled with musk and sweetened by spilling beeswax. Lazy spirals of sun polished the light to burnished gold, drawing quartz refractions from Aro's skin and lending a patina of auburn to her mahogany hair.

"I am glad you think so. It took me the greater part of a thousand years to accumulate this collection."

"Can I look?" she asked, her eyes alight with an academic's curiosity. In her enthusiasm, she was nearly bouncing, and Aro grinned.

"Of course, my dear. Begin on the right side—the left contains the older works, and you will likely not understand the languages." As soon as the words were spoken, Bella had scampered off between the shelves, dark hair bobbing around her shoulders, spilling her scent through the unmoving, glowing serenity.

A few moments passed, and she returned, clutching folios with eager fingers.

"What did you choose?" he asked, wondering what sort of literature an adolescent would find amidst ancient shelves and yellowing parchment.

"Shakespeare. I've never read any of the Henries," Bella said, brushing gentle hands over the spines of the Bard's British pieces. The gesture was a revealing one- a title slipped and Aro noted that it was _Romeo and Juliet._

"A little romance to balance the history?" he inquired.

"Edward used to read this with me. We thought we were like them—Romeo and Juliet, I mean. It's stupid, isn't it?" Bella said, ragged flesh curling away from gnawed nails, leaving ridges as flayed as her voice. "We weren't—how could I have thought that I deserved love like _this_?" An impatient hand slammed onto the fabric-edged cover raising cloying clouds of dust and mildew.

Aro considered informing her that Shakespeare had intended the his oft-misquoted play as a cautionary fable or perhaps reminding her that love was left bleeding and blemished upon the pages of books, the words nothing like the emotion itself.

Instead, he found an answer slipping from his lips, unbidden and unexpected. "Marcus tells me that your bond with Edward was an extraordinary one. Regardless of outcome, the pair of you shared such belief in the strength of your feelings. Surely that should count for something." Aro faltered for a moment, the aftertaste of his speech too sweet upon his lips. Such idealism had been neatly stripped from him during three thousand years, and he could not guess what had coaxed it to the surface once more.

The mortal girl seemed soothed by his words nonetheless, the strawberry fading from her features as her pulse steadied. "Thanks. Listen, I'm sorry for telling you about all this. You shouldn't have to hear about my problems."

"My dear, I do not mind." Again, Aro was startled. This conduct was rooted in something more intimate than a lifetime of polished etiquette; Bella's willingness to trust him with her wounded heart was certainly a flattering novelty, and it enticed strange sentiments to the surface. "Why not leave _Rome and Juliet_ with me?"

Bella grinned. "Thanks. Maybe it's better if I do that. I'm tempted to throw the book across the room."

He laughed, disentangling it from her slender fingers, the warmth and heartbeat thrumming beneath her translucent skin utterly, deliciously foreign to him. "Go ahead and take the rest of the plays with you. Return them when you like, and we can discuss your opinions then."

"That'd be really great." Once again, the cream of her skin brightened to a flustered cherry, and Aro was suddenly fascinated by this telltale flush.

With something like a hasty wave, Bella walked out of the library, books cradled in the crook of her arm, earth-coloured hair veiling a shy smile.

[-]

When the shadows lengthened into sunset, Bella left her room once more. She had picked one of her books, though she did not know which, in order to carry a deceptive prop as she sought Aro.

The corridors were oppressive with torchlight and silence, but she was almost accustomed to that. The soundless weave of the air indicated that the ancients and their court were still in the throne room; she could easily slip in and Aro would allow it. She had no reason for seeking him, of course, but Bella was drawn too tightly to his presence of late to care.

A few moments of wandering yielded results, and finally, she found herself at a familiar door. Opening it, she stepped through and walked into a crimson-smeared hell.

There were corpses, drained and still, strewn on the floor as stray blood swirled away into culverts and drains in viscous streams, but that was hardly the worst of it. The coven was not parched enough to devour—they were toying with their victims now, slowly tearing through veins and ignoring arteries, leaving mewling, half-dead humans writhing in miserable spasms on marble.

The stench of sweat and nameless, tortured fear twisted with the iron taste of blood left Bella gasping, but it was the sight of the twins, Jane and her dark-haired brother, leisurely shredding a small girl's throat that blackened her sight and sent her onto the floor, pallid and unmoving.

[-]

When bleary eyes opened, Bella saw smudged garnet that refined itself into glorious tapestries and rich frescos. The chamber itself was unfamiliar, too opulent and exaggerated to belong to anyone with the exception of Aro himself. Curving to look about, she noted that she was draped on a low couch, perhaps Roman in design, with a blanket precisely tucked around her.

"Ah, you are awake." Aro appeared, a mug clutched in his papery hands. "Please, drink this."

The tea was fragrant, vernal and smelling of spilled petals, but she could only choke down a mouthful before the questions tumbled out, and the pretty porcelain cup shattered upon stone.

"What was that? Why were you doing that? Some of those people—they were children, and you didn't need to feed on them, your eyes were still red, you weren't thirsty—you—". Sobs reduced the speech to jumbled phrases, sharp with accusation that seemed unfamiliar leaving a rose-coloured mouth accustomed only to stammering sweetness.

"Bella, Bella, that is who we are. Occasionally, we overindulge and we cannot choose which mortals are present when we do," he soothed, sitting beside her. "Their deaths are painless, and the fear lasts a minute, no more."

"I can't. I can't be like you," she whimpered, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders too tightly, a little girl trying to cocoon herself away from the yawning night.

There were tears beading her eyelashes, defiant droplets prompted by wrath and terror intertwined. In a cautious movement, Aro flicked the pads of his thumbs over her cheekbones, a comforting caress, and Bella recognized the horror of garnet-stained embraces consoling her. Then, graceful hands traced the snowy arches of her face with the reverence a sculptor reserved for his greatest work, pausing only to press a finger, light as moth-wings over her lips in a frail imitation of a kiss.

His touch unstitched her entirely, and her mortality, the salty rhythm of blood through the hollows of her heart and the air coiling through her lungs revealed her desire. Gasping and tremulous, she met his gaze and Aro smiled.

His mouth catching hers seemed natural, the precarious, gentle fall of a leaf in autumn. There was the sensation of frost until flame-edged wonder intruded, turning the kiss into a volatile, compelling thing. Her pulse throbbing in her ears, Bella did not pull away until breathlessness darkened pleasure into something foreign and dangerous.

A steadying hand caught her shoulder as nails curved through her hair.

"I think, my sweet," Aro purred, punctuating the pause with a kiss edged by teeth, "that you will find many _compelling_ reasons to be like me."

Electricity took the place of blood, sparking across her skin as heat hazed her vision. Entwined with a creature as vicious as he was viscerally lovely, Bella suddenly, horribly understood that she had no urge to flee.

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**Author's Note: **Guys, I hate to beg for reviews, but the number of hits and favourites that this fic has is quite disproportionate to the amount of feedback it receives. If it's not too much trouble, I'd love it if you told me what you think of the story. Good stuff, bad stuff, random stuff- I'm open to all of it. I'd especially love it if you gave me feedback about Bella's character; I've never written anything extensive about her before, and I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job with her.

Thank you to all those who reviewed the previous chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**V.**

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The mortal girl seemed windswept, her coarse hair winding itself into elf-locks though Aro's fingers smoothed it into an even fall. A foreign note, heavy with cedar and musk, had insinuated itself into the floral tangle of her scent and it took him a few moments to recognize arousal. Humans, he decided, were wonderfully easy to decipher, treacherous chemicals polluting their blood and misbalancing their smell with every passing desire.

Though his hands maintained a languorous pattern of caresses, his mind whirled ahead. He was accustomed to comfortable quiet accompanying kisses but pretty speech was a necessity now. This Bella, flushed and foolish in her surety, would be easily swayed by words, he was certain of it. Stray thoughts considered praising her beauty, her cleverness and charm, but the notions were quickly discarded. She believed herself inimitable enough to capture an immortal's fancy—that was a useful flaw.

"My dear," he purred, sensual as a stretching panther, "I have never met such an intoxicating creature. What would I not give to see what rests behind those lovely eyes..." Gentle knuckles brushed the tip of her nose and skittered across the arch of her mouth.

In the silken silence, crushed at the corners and smudged by touches, she smiled at him tentatively, lacing her fingers through his. A tell-tale stammer and hitch in her breathing signal led that she was biting back speech.

"What is that you wish to say to me, _cara mia_?"

"You have a mate," Bella whispered, as though she was confessing a blood-soiled misdeed rather than stating a fact. Her lower lip was plucked by incautious nails until raw crescents appeared, edging plum bruises with wounded crimson.

There was insinuation in that assertion, a hidden wish to hear him denounce his wife, to dismiss her out of hand and mind. This arrogant child placed herself upon equal footing with his Sulpicia in supreme, uncaring flippancy, and it rankled. The Cullens, it seemed, had taught her nothing about the gulf that distanced vampires and mortals, gods and flies. The snarl of pride affronted threatened to tear from between his teeth, but he swallowed it with difficulty.

"It is not your place to concern yourself with Sulpicia," he said, and allowed her to interpret that as she wished. She grinned then, and he understood how simple she must be, and how young, to search for only one meaning in his words. If only she lacked warmth and that strange, silent mind—the consequences ran crimson.

"Now, sweetheart, you must return to your chambers. You have had a trying day, and I am certain that Renata is more than eager to brush your hair or make you tea, however clumsily."

He kissed her once more, nipping at her chafed mouth to mingle pleasure and pain within her memory, then locked the door to the patter of her retreating footfalls.

[-]

The long amble to her chambers seemed unsteady, as though Bella was walking on the salt-stained prow of a ship in stormy seas. The whirl of bees within her stomach alternately stung and buzzed, leaving her shivering, her thoughts a colourless blur. There was nothing she wanted more than to slam her door and bury her face in the pillows like a child, cooling her flaming cheeks against pristine silk. That wish was not granted.

As though he had been waiting, Caius disentangled himself from the shadows, his stride matching her own. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the uncomfortable jitter that accompanied his motions; he was unaccustomed to walking at a mortal's pace and had no interest in hiding it.

Her cheeks were marked with scarlet guilt, she was sure of it, and she said nothing, locking her secrets behind clenched lips.

"You are acquainted with Gianna, are you not?" Caius said, not bothering to preface his demand with a greeting.

Bella nodded, remembering the pretty young woman diligently typing upon a sleek keyboard.

"In a few months, we will tear her throat apart while she prays to her god for mercy. Her blood—" he paused for a moment, contemplating, "is rather tasteless. We most certainly will not kill her to slake our thirst. Now, do you know why I am telling you this?"

Appalled and shivering at the images her mind's eye was painting in garnet strokes, Bella shook her head.

"Gianna has served her purpose, and her impending death is merely the reward for uselessness. You, Miss Swan, are much like her with the exception that you have never had a function. Tell me, under what circumstances do you think your heart will stop beating?" His tone was almost friendly, airy and conversational.

She said nothing at all, her mouth pinching as fear spurred her pulse to an unimaginable tempo. Crimson dotted Caius' cuffs, and she was certain that it was not an oversight.

"You are meaningless here. It would behoove you to remember it. Good night, Miss Swan." A pale palm twitched in the direction of her room, and she nearly sprinted inside, shutting the door behind her and fiddling with the lock, her fingers slicked with sweat. Caius' final words whipped themselves into a maelstrom, but the meaning was lost when she grasped the difference between a threat and a promise.

[-]

Aro's grace, his divine majesty, dimmed to dull copper without an audience. Alone in the rust-tinted parlour that carried a mortal's scent, he knit his fingers together pensively. This throwaway plan of his, a whimsical, colourful scrap of an idea, was tangling and blossoming into perfection; a craftsman's pride glowed upon his features.

It was extinguished with a hiss as he recalled Sulpicia, glorious and feral, a paradox melded into the shape of a woman. Feigning love for bony, pool-eyed Bella came with ease only because he imagined sunlit hair in the place of brown, and speech eccentrically touched by the ghostly fingerprints of Italian and Latin before it.

With a sigh, he rose, straightening and fidgeting until traces of hesitant human hands no longer marked his appearance. A minute of rapid steps through dusty corridors brought him to the chamber he shared with his mate, an ornate, decadent disaster of a room undeniably theirs.

Sulpicia was curled amongst cushions stacked precariously upon a low couch. Her hair was unpinned, falling in sodden ringlets while damp streaks slashed her silken robe, and to Aro's mind, she was perfectly lovely.

"Good evening," he murmured. She did not glance up.

"What excuse will you offer me?" she said, and he knew that Bella's unmistakable scent, floral and deceptively innocent, clung to him.

"My love, you know that the course of my actions is necessary," he soothed, though he was certain that his words would be cast aside.

"You seek yet another novelty," Sulpicia said. Her meaning was writ large in silence. _I was never sufficient,_ her thoughts told him, tinged with the bitterness of ancient wine.

"She is not you, and she never will be," he offered, because honeyed declarations of love were intended only for those whom he intended to deceive. To bridge the emptiness with touch, Aro kissed her, a lonely, one-sided gesture that echoed like a whisper within a tomb. Eager hands slipped along the lattice of her spine, stroking and coaxing until she turned to silk beneath his hands. A thousand years of familiarity turned intimacy into ballet, but he was clever enough to see the sure mark of a reluctant partner.

He sat beside her instead, a hand poised tentatively near her throat, a mere sliver separating porcelain flesh. Suddenly, grimly, Aro recalled mortal maps and carefully penned legends, where an inch of distance symbolized a thousand leagues.

[-]

In the stifled stillness of her room, Bella pieced through her thoughts, clumsily placing them in a semblance of unity before the slightest puff of uncertainty scattered them once more. The impatient thrum of her heart and the heat between her hips clouded her reason, but something sharper lingered in the careless swirl of her muddled mind.

This was _anger_, vicious and so foreign that she did not recognize the sentiment at first. She was tired of threats and the hollow, pendulous shadow of awaiting doom. Wanting what she could not have was beginning to chafe at the arbitrary lines she had drawn, separating herself from the monsters that surrounded her and making her wonder how much longer she would recognize the face in the looking-glass.

The sweetness of spilled temptation fresh upon her tongue, Bella longed for the certainty that she could steal and twist, bending her future into a shape she found pleasing. Before she hastily turned her thoughts to other things, enjoyable notions of books unread and rooms unexplored, the very warp and weft of her being unraveled, desperate for blood and lust and surrender.

* * *

**Author's Note:** A few people were curious about the relationship between Aro and Sulpicia, and her response to the Bella situation. I know that it's a bit of a trope in Aro/Bella stories to state that his relationship with Sulpicia is corroded beyond repair, or that their bond was never that of a truly mated couple. I personally like the idea of vampires mating for eternity, but I'm certain that their marriages are just as rocky as those of their human counterparts. For the purpose of this story, I've decided to work with that idea and write the relationship between Aro and his mate as a mostly-loving one, albeit fraught with conflict and misunderstanding. Feel free to let me know if you disagree.

The reviews for the previous chapter were lovely and very helpful. (It seems that some of you like my interpretation of Bella, while the rest are polarized- you either think she's too sure of herself, or not enough.) Please keep up the feedback, and I will love you very much and be forever grateful.


	6. Chapter 6

**VI.**

* * *

The knock on Bella's door was unfamiliar, a staccato of pattering fingertips, somehow feminine and inquisitive. For a moment, she decided that Renata had finally learned the value of announcing her presence before simply entering, but she shoved that idea aside with a smile. Sweet as she was, human graces were beyond the little vampire's comprehension.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Athenodora. May I come in?" The voice was quiet and feathery, and Bella's thoughts twisted into a knot, hastily trying to reconcile the disparate notions of Caius' mate and gentleness.

"Yes, sure, um, go ahead," she said, her water-marked confidence fraying and fading before her eyes. These immortals meddled with her mind effortlessly, muddying her perception with graceful fingers and knife-sharp grins, until she could no longer strip appearance from intent.

The door creaked on its hinges and a pale, garnet-eyed creature slipped inside with a shy smile and a whispered apology for being a disturbance. Bella's pulse steadied when she looked at the vampire before her—this woman carried with her the same aura of airy loveliness that she had come to associate with Renata. It could be an ambitious assumption, but she found that vampires who looked like this generally made an attempt at kindness.

"Would you like to sit down?" she said, staring at her feet. Athenodora nodded and perched beside her, looping her fingers together neatly.

"Aro tells me that you are frightened of becoming one of us. Why?"

Bella nearly laughed. The undead did not understand the notion of small talk, it seemed, or questions too personal to be answered. While she grasped at tact and evasive answers, treacherously honest words clawed their way to the surface.

"It's just—I miss my family. I won't be able to see them again, and I can't even say goodbye to them. I don't want to spend the next fifty years thinking of them dying, one by one. I probably won't even find out when it happens." She paused, thinking of Charlie and Renee weeping over the implausible excuse for her absence the Cullens had likely concocted. "And—and Edward. He won't take me back, not like this. I don't want to lose him, not completely. It—it…"

"It hurts, I know. You think it will never pass, and you do not want to imagine a future of trying to swallow that pain."

"Yeah, exactly." Bella nodded frantically, then quickly caught herself, "Wait, do you have some kind of freaky emotion-reading gift?"

"I am entirely freaky gift-free." Athenodora was nearly laughing, a giggle stifled behind slender fingers.

"Then how do you know?"

"I was turned into an immortal without being offered a choice, and like you, I thought that I would spend eternity grieving for the life I had been denied. It isn't like that. Your memories turn to mist, and the love you find after your heart stops beating overshadows anything before it." Her clouded eyes were looking evenly into the middle distance, perhaps in reminiscence.

"Really?" The dismissal of humanity seemed so easy, tempting and attainable.

"Yes. I was very much in love with a human boy when Caius bit me. Now, the only thing I remember about him is his name. Transformation and time took away that hurt."

Bella paused for a moment, considering. The Cullens were always willing to provide her with details, vivid and intimate, about their mortal lives. The brevity of her companion's description was utterly alien to her. Biting back the prying, tugging questions, she fell back upon politeness.

"Thanks. You know, that's actually the most helpful thing I've heard in a while."

Athenodora smiled. "I am glad. Bella, tell me, do you know about Marcus' gift?"

"He sees relationships, right?" She remembered something Aro had said when she was being pried from Edward's arms.

"He does. If you are curious about the bonds you share with anyone in this coven, you may ask him." There was only innocence in Athenodora's voice, no insinuation of impropriety, and for that, Bella was grateful.

"He won't mind?"

"No. He is a remarkably patient man. If you wish, you can find him in the library this afternoon. He will be expecting you." The vampire stood, and quickly squeezed Bella's blue-veined hand in a frosty palm. There was enough affection in the gesture to make the difference in temperature bearable.

[-]

As Athenodora's quick steps took her away from the human's room, into the tangled passages of the palazzo's heart, a subtle shift danced over her features. No gawkiness remained, erased by feral elegance, and the gentleness fled her smile, leaving only a Cheshire cat's grin, all teeth and amusement at a joke well-played.

Only moments later, Aro found her.

"Did you speak with Bella?" he asked, muted light casting odd shadows upon his face. "Did she believe you?"

"Of course," she said, laughter punctuating her speech.

"You have a gift for inventing stories," he approved.

"Or perhaps I am merely blessed with a remarkably gullible audience." Athenodora raised herself onto her toes and pressed a cold kiss upon Aro's cheek, granting him her memory. "Your Bella thinks herself in love with you. Have patience for a few days, and she will beg for immortality."

"We will have a formidable guard then. A decision to join us out of free will alone… that is a novelty," he mused, then ruffled her hair affectionately. "Thank you, sister."

[-]

Marcus sat amidst the stacks, precariously-piled books teetering around him. This corner of the library was his own, a jumble of leather-bound, sentimental works that his brothers scorned and he treasured with the dusty-fingered passion of a collector. The serenity of gilded sunlight and spilling, incautious candles was the last soothing cadence left in the adagio of his wearisome existence.

He had received fair warning that he would be interrupted by the pet mortal, but the reluctant scuffle of her sandals and the sweep of her skirt were unwelcome distractions, rending the fabric of silence carelessly asunder. She lingered a few paces behind him, no doubt awaiting his acknowledgment, and he gave himself a few instants, fumbling for composure.

"Hi," she whispered when he turned to faced her. "Athenodora told me that you wouldn't mind if I talked to you?" The question was squeaky, sharp as an ill-tuned flute to his ears, and he wondered if it was nervousness that tautened her voice.

"She was correct. What do you want of me, child?" He knew quite well what it was she sought—insight of the same sort everyone desired of him, cruelly disregarding the agony every glimpse of love fulfilled offered him.

"I'm—I'm just confused. I don't know what Aro wants from me, or what I mean to him. He can't… love me, can he?" Bella did not meet his eyes.

Marcus nearly wrenched apart the book cradled between his fingers. Old wounds were torn open once more as he gazed at strands of lust and heat, nearly devoid of tenderness, threading their way through his vision's periphery. He pitied this girl, an innocent at a monster's ball, but she was a fool as well and he did not care enough to be her salvation.

"Aro certainly desires you greatly," he murmured instead, choosing fair words. "Your bond is covetous, if nothing else."

"And his…his mate? Sulpicia?" she said, and the name was a whisper marked by fear, threadbare and reluctant.

"You expect too much from me. That relationship changes with every passing hour." He neatly omitted any mention of the bond's polarity.

"He wants my gift, then," she said, small and sad. It puzzled him that she did not speak of the lust she felt for the ink-haired ancient, the greed and flame-edged desire that wracked her body in searing waves. Impure intentions, after all, were not Aro's realm alone.

"He will give you precisely what you want," Marcus said. That sort of equivocation would appease Athenodora, and Bella would not look at it twice. Feeling a glimmer of pride, he returned to his book and ignored the farewell he received from an eager girl. He knew himself to be a fool for love, a flaw he displayed openly alongside his shredded heart, but the few remaining shards of gentleness did not lend Marcus the will to tell her any sort of truth.

[-]

In the evening, Bella was curled in her room amidst old books and stately furniture that would never suit her. Though a translucent-paged literary masterpiece lay thrown open on her lap, she could not bring herself to absorb the peeling words. There was too much noise inside her head, too many thoughts vying for her attention. It was almost funny, she decided, and a little alarming that even the parchment beneath her fingers called to mind Aro's skin.

She felt as though her brain has been silenced, the nerves themselves rerouted until she was nothing more than her senses, strained and knotted around the idea of a night-haired ancient. She _craved_ him; his absence pained her like a phantom limb while the possibility of his presence stole her breath and her mind in dark waves.

Suddenly, Bella remembered Edward, and his sentimental observation that she was his heroin. Comprehension dawned, before she realized how cruel it was that her narcotic of choice was someone far bleaker, a beautiful, bloody tyrant so removed from the gleaming Cullens that no comparison could be made.

Her heart blazed so brightly that she did not care.

There was a knock at her door then, followed by the cadence of a voice that she had longed to hear for hours.

"Bella, my sweet, may I come in?" Aro sang.

She must have murmured something in agreement, because moments later, he was beside her, the crisp propriety of his vest and the heavily wrought gold of the pendant at his throat serving as sharp reminders of status.

"You look worried, my dear," he said, and she noticed the snarls in her hair, the wrinkles in her dress where nails had worried at the fabric. "It is because of the overabundance of vampires parading through your room today?"

Bella sighed, fiddling with his shirt-cuff, too shy to let her fingers fall upon dusted skin. "No, not really. It's just been a really long day. Lots to think about, you know?"

"Smile for me," he whispered, closing the distance between them until the words were cool against her lower lip. "You look so very lovely when you are happy."

That coaxed a reluctant grin from Bella; his speech compelled action, and the heat he drew from her brought obedience with it.

"Now, tell me what is troubling you," Aro said softly, his fingers roaming over the blushing softness of her features.

"It's Edward. Marcus and Athenodora think that he didn't love me the way I thought he did, and they're probably right. I misread him, I guess." Her voice was small, fractured beyond recognition.

"There is no shame in losing oneself during the course of first love," he said, peacefully toying with her hair. Even the insinuation of touch was distracting, and she could hear the mad staccato of a heartbeat echoing in her ears.

"But that makes me wonder whether I belong here. I mean, if my feelings towards Edward were wrong, who's not to say that what I feel now is just as… misguided?" She did not want to hear anything but reassurance, a comfortable promise that she was desired and wanted. The ferocity of longing sparked hope in Bella's wide eyes.

"Oh, _cara mia_, do not say that. The thought of losing you is… unbearable to me. Trust that your place is in Volterra because I could not imagine you anywhere else." One by one, Aro pressed a moth-light kisses onto her fingertips, and Bella felt herself melting, dissolving into rivulets of wine-heavy want, unencumbered by thought or restraint.

"Now look at you," he whispered, hands forming chilly shackles around her wrists. "Your greatest beauty lies in surrender, in acceptance of what you can become." There seemed to be a second meaning coiling behind his words, but she did not know what it could be.

As silence settled between them, Aro curved his arms around Bella, holding her in an embrace that was possessive, stitched with ornate promise and silvered gentleness. Her breathing steadied into an even fall, and darkness, sleepy and sticky, crashed upon her in waves.

"Stay with me?" she said, and the words were desperate, clinging as river reeds.

"Of course."

Bella slept then, and her dreams were cold and still as the marble flesh pressed against her skin.

* * *

**Author's Note:**I'm trying to get some interaction between Bella and most of the Volturi into this story. Next chapter: Sulpicia and Jane! I'm very much look forward to writing that, I must admit.

I am grateful to everyone who read and favourited the previous chapter. Reviews, as always, are better than cupcakes with sprinkles.


	7. Chapter 7

**VII. **

* * *

When Bella awoke, the stretched stains of shadows upon the floor indicated that it was only moments after dawn, and the carefully smoothed sheets beside her, no longer bearing the inimitable scent of Aro's skin, spoke that he had departed long before a pewter sun had smeared the sky.

Moving a sleep-heavy hand, she ran seeking fingers over the satin-edged pillow and brushed a folded slip of parchment onto the floor. Immediately jolting awake, she fumbled beneath the bed's dusty frame until she retrieved the note and eagerly uncreased it.

The paper was thick, the colour of curdled cream in the dim light, and the words on it were written in precise letters, spiked and graceful. Rubbing bleary eyes, Bella read in frenetic gulps.

_My sweet Bella,_

_Although it pains me, I cannot be by your side when you wake. Guests are expected shortly, and I must be present to prepare and welcome them._

_These visitors are old friends, covens that have supported the Volturi for decades, at very least. They are not, however, known for their restraint or reticence towards human blood. For this reason, I ask that you remain in your chambers unless accompanied by a member of the guard._

_Jane will remain with you, to ensure your safety. _

There was a signature at the bottom of the page, and a carefully underlined date, as though Aro wished to remind her that the time of grace before the promised transformation was nearly at an end. This knowledge was iron upon her thoughts, before the notion of tiny, venomous Jane acting as her keeper overwhelmed Bella with a different sort of fear.

[-]

When Bella stepped out of the bathroom with steam-softened skin and sodden ringlets scented with thyme, she was met with the unwelcome sight of Jane sitting upon a chair.

"What are you doing here?" the human girl nearly yelped, immediately ashamed of the shredded fear her voice revealed.

"Watching you. What does it look like?" Jane said coolly. Her drab hair fell neatly onto her forehead, grazing her ears in lifeless strips while the sailor-collared dress she wore seemed to be chosen to convey a schoolgirl's sweetness. Nonetheless, her gaze was terribly old, almost ugly in its misplaced cynicism.

Self-consciously, Bella tightened her arms around herself. "Could you not do that while I'm in a towel?"

"No."

She was so close to throwing back a sarcastic snort of a reply, the sort of wrath-tinged scorn that she reserved for slender, blonde students at her high school before Bella remembered the nature of the girl in front of her, the barely leashed hatred she possessed.

"I'll just go into my closet to change, then," she announced, hoping that her extraordinarily vigilant companion would not follow her there.

"Fine." Jane remained seated, studying her distorted reflection in polished shoes.

[-]

When Bella emerged, dressed in the most casual skirt she could find, Jane was still perched upon her chair in silent reflection. Perhaps it was best to leave her that way, she decided, and crossed patterned marble to put as much distance as she could between her sentinel and herself.

Her eyes fell upon the dust-filmed desk that seemed to be placed in her room merely as a prop, or because there was no other place for it within the cavernous halls. Incongruously, there was a stack of envelopes upon it, and rough-edged paper, heavy and cream-toned as the scrap of parchment that Aro had left by her side. Upon closer observation, Bella noticed that there were stamps as well, and a collection of pens.

"Does Aro want me to write to someone?" she asked, picking up empty sheets and examining their watermark, a swirling crest centered about the letter V.

"Master Aro did not say." Jane's voice remained colourless. "If you write to your parents and undermine whatever excuse the Cullens have produced, you will be punished."

"I figured."

Bella sat down neatly and began searching for thoughts to pen to Edward, sweet lies of ink and vellum. Already, she was forced to gouge away the present in roughened shards to find remnants of the chocolate-eyed girl who had dreamed of lilac-tinged kisses. The first strokes of the pen rent her integrity into colourful scraps.

_Dear Edward,_

_I miss you._

Although she had bled sentimentality once, this was all she could spare to stain the page. Instead, practical matters etched themselves into words.

_I'm sure you have Alice watching Aro, waiting for him to transform me. It'll be soon, probably by the time you receive this letter. I don't want you to worry; it's not so bad here. Everyone is trying to be nice, as best they can. Volterra isn't home, but I can manage. _

_Listen, I don't know how soon I can come back to Forks. There's so much to learn here, and I don't want to be a burden to everyone when I'm a newborn. In a few years…_

She hastily scratched away that phrase. There was no future away from Aro, and she was not cruel enough to exchange deception for hope.

_Tell Alice that I miss her so much, and pass on my love to Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, Esme and Carlisle. I don't know what you told Jake, and my parents, but if there's any way you can let them know that I think about them every day, I'd be grateful for it. _

_I love you. _

She signed her name hastily, and folded the little note into a handful of squares, willing the half-truths to diminish into irrelevance as the paper vanished into an envelope's embrace.

"Jane, where can I mail this?" Bella asked reluctantly.

"Just give it to me. I will place it on Gianna's desk."

The dark-haired girl coughed, attempting to coax a polite denial from stiffened vocal chords.

"I won't read it," the vampire hissed. "Do you truly believe that I am curious about your inane scribblings?"

Bella gnawed upon her fingernails, unwilling to part with her flimsy farewell to the Cullens. It seemed unjust, treacherous almost, to allow an inferno-eyed child to touch something so intimate.

"Please, let me mail it. I'll be quick," she pleaded.

"You will most likely be eaten by the guests," Jane dismissed.

"Not if you come with me. Nobody's going to bother me if you're there." It was a shameless appeal to vanity, but Bella was certain that the delicate girl appointed to accompany her would never allow doubt about her talent to remain unchallenged.

"Very well. Follow me."

[-]

As Jane led her through meandering, sunless passages, Bella began to hear the smooth sweep of vampiric voices. The languages were jumbled, a chant of beautiful, unknown syllables even to her untrained ears.

"Can I see?" she whispered, glancing at her companion. She knew nothing about vampires, and the notion of seeing more of them, scattered nomads and covens, was as intriguing as it was deadly. The promise of viewing Aro from afar only lent purpose to her steps.

"No," Jane commanded, but Bella had already slipped away. She followed her ears, though the dainty immortal at her side was whispering reprimands.

After a few moments of rushing, rapid footfalls, Bella found herself standing in the bleak corner of a gallery, overlooking a coolly-lit atrium. Beneath her, the Volturi, curiously lacking their customary cloaks, intermeshed with vampires that she did not recognize.

In moments, her mind began seeking patterns, trying to comprehend the crimson-eyed tableau before her.

Bella could spot the mated pairs even from a shadowy distance. There was something in their expressions, in their eyes, to which she could not assign a name. She saw it in the way Chelsea clutched Afton's hand, in Caius' lingering gaze upon Athenodora. Even amongst the foreign vampires, who wove around one another in tangled, trailing clusters, it was simple enough to spot lovers. Their bonds were too delicate, too indefinite to be compared to gravity; it was something far more elemental that bound them.

She could see the same mercurial attraction twisting itself around Aro and Sulpicia, winding and warping them into complementary creatures.

Before Bella could restrain herself, a choking snarl of some jagged, thrashing emotion tore itself from her throat and her fingers turned to claws around the envelope she clutched, leaving deep creases in pristine paper.

[-]

Sulpicia cocked her head towards the pooling darkness of the gallery, her clever eyes narrowing. Excusing herself with a brush of gentle fingers over her companion's arm and a gleaming, glorious smile, she ghosted away.

Moments later, she stood before Jane and Bella, a garnet-eyed goddess. The bloody gemstones sprinkled over her neck crafted the image of a slit throat, spilling crimson crystal upon flesh.

Immediately, the little vampire stammered an explanation, moving closer to her mistress's side.

"Shh, dear one," Sulpicia breathed, and Bella noted the way scarlet-tipped nails threaded their way through Jane's mouse-coloured hair, in a gesture that could only be considered affectionate.

The golden immortal eyed the human girl with something like curiosity upon her feline features. Then, she smiled, as though she was speaking to a wayward yet adorable puppy.

"You do not belong here," she sang, and the words were a silvery glissando, cutting sharply through the thrum of blood in Bella's ears and the sterile taste of fear that filled her mouth. "Do not wander. It is not safe.

Sulpicia turned away then, quickly giving Jane's hair a final pat before her silent steps returned her to the knot of polished voices beneath them.

[-]

As Jane dragged her away, sibilant wrath escaping between ground teeth, Bella finally found a name for the sentiment rising in her belly, fierce and coiling. It was not fear, and its intensity, the chemical burn of this unprecedented emotion, was too great for mere dislike.

She loathed Sulpicia, with the sort of shattered bitterness that she had never before experienced in eighteen years of feathery existence. That woman had dared dismiss her, as something too paltry to be considered an opponent, a plaything to be coddled. She wanted, more than anything, to scream that Aro loved _her_, that she was odd and lovely and gifted, while Sulpicia was merely an ornament to be discarded in the very near future.

Grimly, Bella realized that those words would be meaningless if they came from a blossom-coloured mouth, accompanied by the flushed petals of her cheeks and the staccato of angered breathlessness.

"I'm asking Aro to turn me," she announced, ceasing her stride. The pronouncement was strident, shrill in the cobwebbed silence of an airless corridor.

The witch child gave no indication that she had heard. She did not pause and her gaze remained fixed upon the middle-distance. A tiny twitch of the lips, a tic or perhaps something else entirely, was the only response Bella received.

The letter in her hands was mangled beyond recognition.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I apologize for the lack of Bella/Aro in this chapter. On the bright side, Ms. Swan is showing signs of growing a spine, and on the even brighter side, there will be lots and lots of Bella/Aro in the next chapter. Dare I suggest lemons?

An enormous thank-you to everyone who reviewed and favourited.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** This chapter contains some sexuality. There is nothing too explicit, but if you object or are under-age, please skip this portion of the story.

* * *

**VIII.**

* * *

Although the hour was indecorously early, a mismatched quartet of immortals gathered in a burgundy mausoleum of a study that could only have been polished and pieced together by Aro. Discomfort thrummed in the air between them, an unwelcome guest that lingered in the shadows' play of the torchlight and the silken sweep of medieval tapestries.

Aro shattered the calm, allowing his carmine gaze to fall upon a quaint, contrary child, dour in her gleaming shoes and sternly Edwardian dress. "Jane, sweetheart, are you certain that Bella agreed to become one of us?"

The witch-girl extended a shivering hand, offering her master all that she had seen, trapped between quartz skin and the seashells of nails.

"Oh, dear one, I am not questioning your recall or your honesty. I merely wish to know the circumstances that prompted this unlikely outburst of reason from our guest."

Adolescent uncertainty, stammering and slippery, stole Jane's words, her teeth leaving a pressed imprint upon bruised lips. "Mistress Sulpicia," she whispered finally. The ghostly fissures upon her heart tightened and shifted as she recalled the taste of envy upon her own tongue, before the tortured splendour of her gift had been uncovered.

Aro's laughter was deliciously, dexterously mad. "Of course. My lovely mate has ways of drawing jealousy to the surface." Ruffling Jane's hair with an incautious palm, he murmured a gentle dismissal and turned his eyes to the chamber's remaining occupants.

"It seems that we have nearly earned ourselves a gifted guard, my brothers. I believe that I am owed an apology. You both did, after all, question my methods."

There was no triumph to be seen, no gauzy, glorious joy.

For a wintry moment, Caius and Marcus wore twin expressions, disbelief coalescing with uncompromising condemnation upon severe, snow-stained features. Their minds had strayed, without a doubt, to thoughts of their mates, shimmering, sentimental fantasies that blurred and bloodied their intellect with crimson ardour. Briefly, Aro wondered how a woman, or the mere misted memory of a mate, held his brothers in absolute thrall, but that was contemplation best saved for a drowsy interlude.

"Do not trouble yourselves with Isabella's transformation. In a few days' time, there will be nothing to fear," he soothed, impatient hands fervently clasped at his chin.

The choking, chilly shroud of apathy had once more fallen over Marcus, while Caius appeared to be searching for a retort, barbed with disbelief.

"Come now, my brothers, do you not trust me? It will be such a simple thing to turn Isabella," Aro insisted, the leaping flames coaxing an edge of light upon a starving smile.

Questions glided in the stillness upon whispering wings, but he chose to pay them no heed. Instead, the meeting came unstitched when Marcus departed, swiftly and unceremoniously.

"If I were in your place, the girl would be dead by nightfall, and the Cullens would not know where to begin seeking her corpse," Caius said casually, before taking his leave in an irritated tangle of shadows and snow.

[-]

"Come inside, my dear," Aro sang as Bella tiptoed into his study, cautiously placing her feet upon the intricate weave of the carpet. Her heart was already pounding and she was certain that if she did not take care, she would be sprawled upon the floor, her shoes uncomfortably caught upon roughened silk.

When she drew close, he opened his arms, inviting her to curl upon his lap as a beloved cat would. Although she was unpleasantly reminded of childhood, the earth-haired girl complied, immediately noting how intimately comforting it was to be held and cherished.

"You have expressed a desire to become immortal." An ephemeral touch tousled her hair, perhaps in encouragement.

"Jane told you? I don't... I don't mind or anything, I just wanted to tell you myself."

"With time, you will find that little Jane is most fastidious in her duties. Nonetheless, my original question remains. Do you indeed wish to be turned now?"

The edges of her vision curled and blackened suddenly, as she gasped. "Now? This instant? I didn't think it would be so soon."

"Why such reluctance, my lovely Bella? Surely you know that you will be a breathtaking immortal." His speech was punctuated with kisses, which seeped like blood, lower and lower. These were not the miscellaneous caresses of a lover testing the waters with tentative toes; there was a purpose here, dark and decadent as ancient wine. All too soon, questing hands found their way beneath her collar, stroking the softness of colourless, human ribs. "Is it because you fear losing your precious mortality, with all its messy, sticky sentiment?"

"I'm...I'm not scared," she breathed, her fingerhold upon false courage as insistent as the pressure her slim palms applied to his shoulders, curiously seeking exposed flesh beneath the dull ebony of pressed robes. Her blood was thrumming in the chambers of her chest, cruelly apparent, and her sallow cheeks blossomed with colour, as she realized how utterly, terribly weak she appeared.

The vampire laughed, pressing small, sparking kisses upon her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids, while his hands drew shapes through the fabric of her garments. It was a dancing, dainty seduction, but it only took Bella a moment to realize that it was not requisite. She was already his, as though she wore his crest, a steel brand marking her allegiance.

"Your heart," Aro mused softly, whimsically lingering upon inconsequential words. "Your pulse is so quick, like wings." His laughter fluttered and flitted, elegant as the birds the simile evoked. "Perhaps it is I who frightens you?" He allowed his fingers to fall, resting upon the flower-spattered cotton that covered her knees.

Once more, she squared spindly shoulders in protest, willing to prove her worth to a being older than thought. Bella's fingers crept towards her own clothes, tentatively peeling fabric to reveal flimsy, flushed skin and permitting the soft scraps of her blouse to tumble away.

"You are not afraid? Well, well." Teeth, gently vicious, closed at the hollow of her throat, sending molten shivers through her. "Perhaps you should be."

The topography shifted.

The chilly expanse of a mahogany desk prickled her spine, raising tantalizing welts, but Bella no longer noticed; Aro commanded her absolute attention, with clawed hands and a snarled, iron grin. The gentility abandoned his motions entirely, leaving nothing but sinew and bone held together by reserved lust that darkened his eyes to onyx.

Somewhere, deep inside her pattering thoughts, Bella could hear screaming, but raw exhilaration looped shackles around the fear.

An appraising glance was cast over her body, still obscured by the insignificant blush of a bra and a ruffled skirt, before Aro's smirk coiled and melded into a hunter's lunge. Cloth was rent to ribbon, and a cool tongue traced designs upon her right breast as nails gouged and plucked at the left. Delight quickened her breathing, each small ember of pain slipping directly between her thighs and winding itself into aching knots.

Illogical, intoxicated syllables slipped from Bella's sweetly swollen mouth as pale teeth closed upon her nipple, sore and stubborn from previous attention. Soon, his fingertips dugs into the translucent skin of her belly as sharp-edged kisses savaged a path towards the steady slope of graceful hipbones. Everything—Aro, her pulse, time itself— was rushing far too rapidly, a giddy blur of colour and heat, and Bella wanted nothing more than to stop, to continue, to drown and resurface gasping once more.

Her lover, still perfectly clothed and supremely unruffled, raised his head and observed, his eyes gliding over the staccato rise and fall of her breasts, the petalled flush that glazed her skin, perhaps the way a handful of touches had reduced her to garbled want and slipping need.

Aro bowed his lips over her thighs then, and her world became flame. His tongue danced over tender flesh too quickly, clumsy teeth adding piercing, perilous friction that threatened to tear her apart, leaving only rags and pooling carmine. Each swipe of mouth and fingers moved her closer to the inescapable fall, but too steadily, too gently for her liking.

Finally, her shredded mind stitched itself together for an instant, long enough to whisper a handful of worn words.

"More, Aro, I—"

He halted, and she mewled, mourning the lost press of papery skin and slick warmth, but the ebony-haired immortal did nothing to relieve her.

"You would do well, _cara mia_, to remember that I will only give you what suits me."

The pronouncement was odd, too grave for a moment so intimate, but lust was a cruel master. Bella lay still, helplessly hoping that docility would earn her his touch once more.

"Much better."

His fingertips and tongue resumed their rhythm, drawing her closer to agonized rapture until—

"Aro, I...I—"

The garbled scream of soaring, tumbling joy turned hideous as bruising bites coaxed crimson from her hipbones, her wrists, her throat.

Bella was left alone then, abandoned to a different sort of death as lazy, coppery rivulets stained her skin in grotesque spirals.

[-]

In the palazzo's shaded rooms, a honey-haired woman clutched her companion's hand with vicious talons. Had Athenodora been human, her palm would have become nothing more than matted sinew, but immortality lent resilience to Sulpicia's fervent grasp.

When the mortal girl's shriek carved ugly, splintered shapes into the silence, Aro's mate smiled, lyrically lovely once more.

"Newborns are so very bewildered when they wake," she mused. "So many odd ideas fluttering in their strange little skulls."

Athenodora's laughter was sweetly silvery. "And disillusioning them is such fun."

* * *

**Author's Note:** This chapter was a difficult one for me to write, and I hope that it was slightly uncomfortable to read. The inherent power imbalance and insincerity between Bella and Aro, as well as the beginning of Bella's transformation are meant to be frightening, coldly manipulative events, and I hope my condemnation of these actions came through within the writing itself.

If you have any concerns, please let me know via review, PM, or formspring.

As always, thank you for your reviews and favs. Each and every one is very much appreciated.


	9. Chapter 9

**IX.**

* * *

The flames receded in waves, a tenebrous tide that alternated between agony and anaesthetized dullness.

Touch returned to Bella's leaden limbs, disclosing her prone position upon a narrow bed with sweat-sullied sheets. A susurrus of voices reached her ears soon after, words spilling in a language that she did not comprehend, distorted into dreariness by stonework. In the periphery, she could detect mournful music, an arching, lonely lullaby plucked from a cello's tautened strings, while something much like laughter lingered in the foreground.

The revelation of her scent was subtle; a whisper of freesia coiled in the air and she nearly gagged upon the cloying, vernal sweetness. Immediately, her foreign mind questioned every purring endearment that had escaped immortal lips in her presence, praising the delights that were her skin and blood.

_Thirst_.

A blistering, bone-edged inferno ignited within her throat, searing skin away and leaving her gasping. Nothing, neither thought nor restraint, could elude the vicious heat, turning a girl into a growling, gasping beast whose humanity went no deeper than flesh. In a desperate haze, she rose onto unsteady toes and circled the room.

Vanity halted her footfalls in front of a slender dressing mirror, catching meagre candlelight beside a spindly chair. The creature gazing at her from the glass was merely lovely, and Bella felt cold fingernails bury themselves within the soundless cavity of her ribs. Certainly, her features were a paean to Grecian symmetry, rendered in perfect arches and deceptive softness but there was something absent, marking this moment of triumph with restless, chafing uncertainty. The unfamiliar pallor and grace of her rounded limbs evoked a moment of near-vertigo, and Bella clutched the frail birch of the chair with clawing hands.

Her nakedness, the raw, revolting silk of an immortal body, frightened her. She did not dare look at her high, arching breasts, the darkness pooling between slim thighs.

In a frantic, breathless gesture, Bella lifted a dress from a low table precisely draped with clothes. It was not a cloak, and the hue of the weave was so fair, so close to colourlessness that not even the lowliest of guards, the ungifted and newborn, wore it.

Her position, it seemed, was neither attained nor assured.

"Bella." A polite voice entered the room, impersonal and unconcerned. This was Felix, she decided, detecting the fire-edged scent of the burly guard. Somehow, she had thought him boisterous, Emmett's bounding doppelganger amongst the Italians, but he seemed remote now, heavy as the tolling of remote bells.

"When can I feed?" she demanded, immediately shocked by the command in her voice, the cadences of authority that thirst had wrought, terrible and ever-expanding.

"Aro wishes to see you," he announced, distant and deadly.

Although her thoughts wove themselves into a crimson maelstrom, a rushing, maddening demand to disobey and destroy, Bella pulled on her moonlit garments, her silver-clasped boots, and let her hair fall free. Such a small thing seemed an act of rebellion, and grave-gray fear outmatched the desire to drink.

Perhaps, it could be called a victory that Felix guarded her now, not wrenlike Renata.

[-]

The Volturi had gathered; the ellipse of the throne-room was edged with immortals, their cloaks a gradient of steel and night. The younger guards, innocent in their silvery garb, whispered and wondered as Bella passed, but granite stillness reined absolute when the ranks blackened. The disciplined survivors of a thousand battles were not charmed by a girl, and doubt trickled over Bella's skin, whimsical and maddening as mercury when she passed through the forest of stone faces.

If she presented no enigmas to young Alec or burly Felix, then—thoughts about Aro turned jagged, too cutting to hold between shredded fingers.

Upon the dais, a quartet of familiar faces watched her, wary and waiting. Marcus' gaze wandered in the middle distance while Caius' customary smirk marked his opinion that she had been measured, judged and found wanting. Behind him, catlike Athenodora smiled, pretty and amused. Bella did not dare to look at Aro; the memories were too fresh, raw and seeping crimson at the edges, and she knew that her features were treacherous.

Sulpicia's absence tore her insides to ribbons. A handful of days ago, she would have rejoiced in the same circumstances, considering herself victor over Aro's mate, but she could see that the Volturi were creatures of gesture and propriety. Snubbing one's wife before an audience would not be done, prevented by decorum if not compassion.

Aro rose from his throne, majestic in the ebony regalia of a reign that lasted three thousand years. His arms were open, an emblem of welcome marred by the distance threaded between them, drawn into knots and nooses.

"Well, well," he said, his voice sparkling like sunlit winter. "You are indeed a lovely immortal, my dear Bella. Would you not say so, brothers?"

Although the words were benevolence itself, some shade of an insult pervaded the sentiment behind them, a ghostly, chanting reminder that exquisiteness was insufficient beside its formidable elder sibling, power.

Caius and Marcus held their peace, but she supposed they were better left alone, for neither man obscured meaning behind lilting speech.

"My friends, it delights me to introduce Isabella. Please, be kind to her. Before she made our acquaintance, she considered herself a Cullen," Aro said to his guard, and fluting laughter wove its way through the lower ranks.

Carlisle, it seemed, left an impression.

"Now, my sweet," Volterra's lord said, intimate and intricate once more, "you must be thirsty, and I do not wish to be a poor host."

As though his words were an invocation, Sulpicia untangled herself from a puddle of darkness in one of the porticos.

A small boy curved at her side, his hand carefully curled in the cool grip of his corpse-pale guardian. The child was not afraid, his heartbeat steady, and Bella immediately remembered the age of make-believe, when a lady of spun silk and summer could only be a princess, though her crimson eyes spoke of slaughter. A falling, wheeling moment passed before she realized that the earth-haired child was nothing more than blood caught beneath fragile skin as soon as he had entered the palazzo with his long-dead parents.

"No—no, I can't," Bella began, a cogent protest dying upon her lips as the blaze in her throat encompassed her mind.

"Bella mia, if you are to be like us, you must feed properly. We do not have enough animals here to sustain your descent into the Cullens' habits. Besides," Aro said, with a graceful arabesque of his fingers, "I prefer it when my guards refrain from acting like aberrations to their very natures."

Sulpicia scooped the boy into her arms, and he clung to her as any child would. It took her a moment to pry his chubby hands from hair, and then his warm weight was pressed against Bella's chest, trusting and curious.

"Go on, my dear," Aro encouraged, as though he knew that the madness of unsatisfied bloodlust had already stolen her heart from her.

Bella intended to make it a gentle death, unpredicted and soundless. The black-mawed monster behind her eyes had other ideas.

[-]

"Brava, Isabella," Aro chirped, examining the rivulets of crimson painting her front. "Tell me, how are you feeling?"

No words left her throat, for there was no describing the greatest delight she had savoured in her short years and the most abhorrent crime she could perpetrate, tangled into a few ghastly moments.

"Ah, no matter, my dear. Moments of magnitude are beyond even immortal description. We are, of course, very proud," he continued, though no-one displayed even a shade of the sentiment in question.

"Renata," Aro said gently, calling the heart-shaped creature away from her position in the penumbra of his throne. She slipped forward, delicate as a child masquerading in priests' cowling robes. "I ask you to travel to America with Demetri. Find the Cullens, wherever they might be, and let them know that their beloved Isabella is safe and well. Show them, little one, what a glorious creature she has become."

Renata's china mouth bowed into her ordinary, paper-doll smile; her fine fingers were looped with Demetri's in a moment.

Bella bit back a scream, tearing her lips and leaving smarting, sickle scars. Edward would see her actions writ large in Renata's guileless mind and the Cullens would never take her back. Esme would never speak to her, sweet Esme who had lost a little boy, and Carlisle who had saved a thousand lives in his few centuries of practise—

"Bella, come along with me. You as well, darling Jane. We have a gift to test," Aro sang, and the mahogany-haired girl's mourning was cut short. Once more, her worth was in question, and she could scarcely stand.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I apologize for the appalling lack of updates, and I assure you that my excuses are mundane as can be. My thanks goes out to those people who nudged me to write more. It produced results :)

A Happy New Year to all of you!


	10. Chapter 10

**X. **

**

* * *

**

Bella had never before acknowledged that the chambers of Volterra carried characters as distinct as those of their occupants. It took only a nudge from her newly-honed senses, precise as a scalpel's silver slide, to reveal the history of the place where she had been led. This room of steel and slate, she was certain, belonged to Caius, for it carried the scent of horror and flame with nothing of whimsy to lend it light.

The three ancients, in robes barren as a winter night, watched her from their shadowy archipelago of chairs. Perhaps this was a test of patience, for she had been given no orders and Jane stood beside her, equally unmoving.

As always, Aro shattered the gloom with beautiful laughter.

"Come, dear Jane, you must not look so sullen. The resemblance between Caius and yourself is growing uncanny, little one," he remarked. "Bella's resilience to your talent is now a cause for celebration, not envy."

Jane turned to flame where she stood, and the newborn immortal in a blood-bathed, cobweb-dress understood that the dainty, dour girl had been inflicting fruitless torture upon her for minutes.

"We must, of course, see how you fare against the other guards, my lovely Isabella," Aro crooned, beginning the parade of thwarted talent.

[-]

Time seemed weightless, with no thrum of heartbeats to measure it, but Bella could only think that she had been tossed upon stone for far too long. When the shield threaded through her mind had repelled the talents of the guards with varying success, the ancients began to call forth their ungifted followers, creatures of oak and strength whose grasp she could not hope to evade.

When Felix, the last of her challengers, had left the torchlit chamber, brushing unscarred knuckles upon his cloak in a mockingly human gesture, the brothers looped their hands together, sharing papery secrets. Bella could only stand there, holding herself still as a doll while her fate was negotiated in silence.

"Bella, Bella, Bella, what am I to do with you?" Aro fussed with knotted fingers as his companions melted into shadows, grief and wrath beckoning them away. "Caius claims that your talent is only useful in opposing us. Once more, he has called for your death, and I am fearful that Marcus will soon be swayed by that reasoning."

The ploy's direction was visible, an easy attempt to force her hand, a revelation of her gift's facets.

"You can't guess what I can do," Bella said, something purring and uncurling in her tone. "I mean, I can't either, but it's still a puzzle, isn't it?"

"An appeal to curiosity," Aro mused. "Remarkably clever, little one."

"You're wrong," the gliding, seductive creature wearing her skin said, bold as the blood painting her front. "I'm appealing to your desire, not your intellect. Tell me, Aro, have you ever exhausted so much effort on anyone else?"

She was close to him now, the silence between them stretched with candlelight and the memory of butterfly-wing caresses. Somewhere deep within, the logical wheels and watchsprings of her mind told her that newly clear sight should find this man-shaped monster hideous, a creature of decaying grandeur and ugly ambitions, but the copper of disgust did not taint her tongue.

"Do not overestimate yourself, my lovely Isabella," Aro laughed. "A handful of kisses and a month of boredom were the price of your allegiance. I cannot think of anyone, guard or ancient, who joined our ranks so readily. It does not suit your deliciously honest nature to cast me as the villain in this little passion play of ours."

There were cadences in his voice that struck her as utterly unfamiliar, rimed with supremacy and the lingering lace of time. There was now no necessity to masquerade as the earnest lover, the ruthless ruler brought low by a fawn-eyed girl; only a grinning god remained, craftily careless.

There was little Bella could say, though she faltered for words to mask the sting of insignificance.

"What am I to do now?" she asked. "Are there duties I must perform or—"

"I have no knowledge of how the guards spend their days, and you, my dear, are among their ranks for the time being. You will go to Heidi, and she will direct you," he crooned. "And I think you have earned your cloak."

With a cool smile, Aro bent and kissed her cheek. "I am certain that you will grow to cherish this life, Bella _mia,_" he said, and she was ashamed at the flare of phantom warmth beneath shale skin.

"So, this is it, then?" she demanded with a sudden uprising of temper.

"Is there anything more to be said?" the ancient wondered. "Ah—yes, there is. My title is 'master' now—the privilege of the _praenomen_ is extended only to those I value as dear. Your history books may have mentioned it."

The arrogance of him, the blistered, bloody contempt, was unbearable and Bella lunged. It could have been rage that curled her muscles, tensed her tendons and stolen her mind, but as the fractions of seconds slowed to honey, she knew that vengeance was thwarted passion's pale twin.

She was in his arms then, pressed far too close against heavy wool, his mouth wrenched down to her level. This kiss was desperate, shards of glass beneath her tongue, unlike anything she had shared with any lover, human or immortal. As the inferno within her ribs threatened to turn her lungs into torn tissue, something shifted in her mind for a minute, the silent arch and release of a bow, but she did not consider it, already lost.

"What did you do?" Aro demanded, his composure showing fissures for the first time as he flinched away.

"I—I don't know, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—" she stammered, appalled at the polarity of her conduct, the leaps between meekness and searing heat.

"Not the kiss, my dear—that was not difficult to anticipate. Your shield... it wavered for a moment, and I saw your mind. It was brief, but I admit myself compelled." He stepped away, withdrawing into the shadows of his own plot and plans, before his attention returned to the wavering, dark-haired girl before him.

"That gift of yours has flexibility," he laughed, utterly delighted by his new plaything. "Now, _there _is a mystery for us to unwind. If your mind can be uncovered, then you are a supremely ordinary creature. A disappointment, of course, but what can be done?"

Bella's spine tightened, a violin string tuned to an unreachable note as she discerned the threat behind the mask. Aro's attentions secured his goodwill, and a transient gift would grant her neither.

"Of course, that elasticity could perhaps extend beyond yourself—ah, my Bella, you are full of such charming surprises today," Aro cooed. "I feel obligated to forgive you the shameless breach of protocol."

Once more, Bella heard the soothing, wine-rich notes enter his tone, tempting as ancient power. Painfully and vividly, she knew that the master of deception was toying with her, plucking the strings of her heart like a puppeteer...

...it did not matter. Her gift, unwanted and misunderstood though it was, had granted her another chance to impress, and she did not consider wasting it. Whatever request Aro posed, whatever demands he made, she would acquiesce because she was beautiful now, faceted and tiptoeing upon the charred brink of power and passions bleaker than any she could have conjured in her mind—

"Bella mia, I ask you to be in my study tomorrow night. Your sudden turn towards the anomalous interests me enough to spur inquiry. You know where the room is, I believe?" Aro's grin was candle flame, as her mind produced unwanted, red-swollen memories of bare skin against a desk and exquisite, delirious heat.

"Of course," she murmured, not adding the title of _master_ to the phrase's end. Her magnificent companion did not seem to mind the irreverence.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Once more, I apologize for the terribly delayed update.

If it's any consolation, I've mostly planned the rest of the story- it shouldn't have much more than five chapters after this one. Hopefully the speed of my writing increases from its current pathetic tempo of one chapter written every three months.


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